These Past Two Weeks

[LadyJag]

These have been the busiest two weeks I can remember! Last week, I worked over 60 hours, trying to meet a deliverable while filling in for my vacationing boss and training 2 newbies on my team. But that's another story. This  journal post is about my Alyssa.

Alyssa turned 2 years old on March 20th, and still does not say more than a handful of words. Due to her speech delay, her doctor recommended a hearing test with an audiologist, followed by a speech evaluation by the early intervention program. So last Tuesday, at 7:30 in the morning, my hubby, Alyssa and I walked into the audiologist's office to await Alyssa's hearing screening.

While in the waiting room, Alyssa entertained herself with all the wonderful toys and video games. But then, a little boy of about 8 years old came in with his mother, and started playing with his Hot Wheels cars. Alyssa was fascinated and ran over to watch. The little boy offered one of the cars to Alyssa to play with, and she took it, then ran off! "Alyssa," I said, "Don't run off with that! He's only loaning it to you!"

"That's okay," the little boy said, then started telling me about the "good old days" when he was in California and there was a place there with the BEST pancakes!

The boy's mother and I chatted a bit, and she asked me why we were there. I told her Alyssa had a speech delay, so we were there to make sure her hearing was good.

Then the mother suggested that maybe Alyssa was autistic! Ha! I guess that's the new buzz word of the day. I gave her the "are you REALLY that stupid?" look, and she went on to say "oh! Well, her eye contact is good, though!"

It kills me that this woman feels that she can expertly diagnose my child in the 10 minutes that she has been in the room with her. Like I and Alyssa's family and doctors just completely missed the real problem over the last 2 years that we've been with her, and aren't we lucky that she walked into the room at that moment with her expert prognosis! I know she didn't mean any harm, but you just don't stir the pot like that!

Fortunately, we finally got called in for the hearing test at that moment. The little boy asked me "Is it ok if I give her one of these cars?" I told him he didn't have to do that, but he really wanted to give Alyssa a car, and Alyssa of course, was thrilled to get one. (I'm going to be in trouble if she can sucker little boys out of their toys at THIS age already!)

Anyway, the audiologist said that Alyssa's ears and hearing was perfectly normal. Even though we had a little difficulty with the actual hearing screening (Alyssa was more interested in the stuffed cat the examiner had than the tones being played on the speakers), we were able to rule out any hearing problems.

So that left the speech evaluation, which we did this past Tuesday. Again, Alyssa had a blast in a room full of toys! The doctor and 2 evaluators came in and tested all of Alyssa's developmental skills. She scored really high on a lot of them - she was at 100% on cognitive and adaptive skills, and 80-95% on motor and other skills (I forgot the category name).

Her speech development, however, was as I suspected. She scored around 75% (higher than I suspected), which means that she qualifies for help in the early intervention program. Apparently, though, speech therapists are really hard to find these days. So our coordinator is trying to find a therapist that will come to the house once per week. If she can't find one, then I will have to drive Alyssa to a rehab center every week for the next 11 months. ACK!

I will do what it takes to help Alyssa, but I've already got a full-time job, and will have to drive her to her swim lessons every day at 5:00 for 4-6 weeks, starting in June. I am blessed to have flexible hours, but that also means that I'm going to be working some very long days! 

Oh well! I am still very proud of Alyssa's development so far, and relieved that there is nothing seriously wrong with her. I still haven't heard anything yet on the speech therapy, but I am anxious for Alyssa to start so that we can communicate better. We already set up some goals through EIP - 5 new words in the next 3 months, and 10 new words and/or 2-word sentences in the next 6 months. Wow, it will be so nice to be able to have a "real" conversation with my little girl!